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London Marriage Allegations
(1521-1610)London, Essex and part of Hertfordshire lay within the diocese of London. In the later 17th century the individual archdeaconry courts issued marriage licences, but for this period the only surviving material is from the overarching London Consistory court. The main series of marriage allegations from the consistory court starts 7 December 1597, and these were extracted by Colonel Joseph Lemuel Chester; Colonel Chester then discovered earlier material, back to 5 January 1521, in Vicar-General's Books of the Principal Probate Registry. The notices in these books were much briefer, but as well as extending back so much earlier, they included additional material for 1597 onwards. All this he collated with the consistory court extracts, and the text was edited by George J. Armytage and published by the Harleian Society in 1887. A typical later entry will give date; name, address and occupation of groom; name, address and condition of his intended bride, and/or, where she is a spinster, her father's name, address and occupation. Lastly we have the name of the church where the wedding was going to take place; or the words Gen. Lic. signifying a general or open licence.

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Hertfordshire Sessions
(1581-1700)Incidents from the Hertfordshire Sessions Rolls. These cover a wide range of criminal and civil business for the county, with presentments, petitions, and recognizances to appear as witnesses: many of the records concern the county authorities dealing with regulation of alehouses, religious conventicles, absence from church, highways, poaching, profanation of the Sabbath, exercising trades without due apprenticeship &c. Unlike the Sessions Books, the decisions of the justices are not recorded on the rolls, which serve more as a record of evidence and allegations. Where the date of a roll is given with an asterisk, it indicates that that particular document was not then in the county muniments, but in the archives of the Marquess of Salisbury (whose ancestors had served as Custos Rotulorum) at Hatfield House. This is a calendar of abstracts of extracts: it is by no means a completely comprehensive record of the surviving Hertfordshire sessions rolls of the period, but coverage is good.

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Hertfordshire Sessions
(1658-1700)Incidents from the Hertfordshire Sessions Books and Minute Books. These cover a wide range of criminal and civil business for the county: numerically, the the most cases (759) concerned not attending church; presentments about repairs to roads and bridges (247); unlicensed and disorderly alehouses (226); assault (156); badgers, higlers, &c., trading without licence (142); and trading without due apprenticeship (117). This calendar gives abstracts of all entries in the Sessions Books and Minute Books for Hertfordshire sessions for the period.

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Hertfordshire badgers, drovers and kidders
(1700-1710)This is a list of licences granted to badgers (B.), drovers (D.) and kidders (higlers) (K.) in the Hertfordshire sessions records. The numbers refer back to a key indicating on which particular sessions rolls the licences are noted: scans of the key are included with the scans of the entries.

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Licences for marriages in southern England
(1632-1714)The province or archbishopric of Canterbury covered all England and Wales except for the northern counties in the four dioceses of the archbishopric of York (York, Durham, Chester and Carlisle). Marriage licences were generally issued by the local dioceses, but above them was the jurisdiction of the archbishop. Where the prospective bride and groom were from different dioceses it would be expected that they obtain a licence from the archbishop; in practice, the archbishop residing at Lambeth, and the actual offices of the province being in London, which was itself split into myriad ecclesiastical jurisdictions, and spilled into adjoining dioceses, this facility was particularly resorted to by couples from London and the home counties, although there are quite a few entries referring to parties from further afield. Three calendars of licences issued by the Faculty Office of the archbishop were edited by George A Cokayne (Clarenceux King of Arms) and Edward Alexander Fry and printed as part of the Index Library by the British Record Society Ltd in 1905. The first calendar is from 14 October 1632 to 31 October 1695 (pp. 1 to 132); the second calendar (awkwardly called Calendar No. 1) runs from November 1695 to December 1706 (132-225); the third (Calendar No. 2) from January 1707 to December 1721, but was transcribed only to the death of queen Anne, 1 August 1714. The calendars give only the dates and the full names of both parties. Where the corresponding marriage allegations had been printed in abstract by colonel Joseph Lemuel Chester in volume xxiv of the Harleian Society (1886), an asterisk is put by the entry in this publication. The licences indicated an intention to marry, but not all licences resulted in a wedding.

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Apprentices registered in Scotland
(1750-1754)Apprenticeship indentures and clerks' articles were subject to a 6d or 12d per pound stamp duty: the registers of the payments usually give the master's trade, address, and occupation, and the apprentice's father's name and address, as well as details of the date and length of the apprenticeship. There are central registers for collections of the stamp duty in London, as well as returns from collectors in the provinces and from Scotland. (The sample entry shown on this scan is taken from a Norfolk return)

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Masters of apprentices registered in Scotland
(1792)Apprenticeship indentures and clerks' articles were subject to a 6d or 12d per pound stamp duty: the registers of the payments usually give the master's trade, address, and occupation, and the apprentice's name, as well as details of the date and length of the apprenticeship. There are central registers for collections of the stamp duty in London, as well as returns from collectors in the provinces. The indentures themselves can date from a year or two earlier than this return. (The sample entry shown on this scan is taken from a Bristol return. Each entry has two scans, the other being the facing page with the details of the indenture, length of service, and payment of duty.) IR 1/66